When a mobile telephone is lost or stolen, telecommunications network operators would like to deny the stolen device access to their networks. Each third generation (3G) Global System Mobile Communications (GSM) telephone includes its own unique international mobile equipment identity number (IMEI). An equipment identity register (EIR) is a database (and/or a server hosting an EIR database) that stores IMEIs of stolen or suspicious mobile devices. The EIR may be queried to determine the status of a particular IMEI. If the particular IMEI is listed in the EIR database, that may indicate that the mobile device is stolen, and the querying node may take steps to bar that device from accessing the network. When a mobile device is denied access to a telecommunications network because its IMEI is listed in the EIR, that device is said to be “blacklisted.” Blacklisting is intended to discourage the theft of mobile phones by providing a mechanism that renders stolen devices from being able to connect to the telecommunications network.
Originally developed for the GSM, network, the EIR could be queried by a mobile switching center (MSC) in a system signaling 7 (SS7) network. For example, the MSC could send an SS7 mobile application part (MAP) query, such as the “Check IMEI” command, to the EIR via the GSM F interface. MAP is one of the protocols in the SS7 suite of protocols and allows for the implementation of mobile network (GSM) signaling infrastructure.
With the rise of high-speed packet networks, telecommunications networks are migrating from the circuit-switched, SS7-based networks of the plain old telephone system (POTS) to packet-switched, Diameter-based networks, which are incompatible with legacy network components such as SS7-based EIRs. Thus, network operators that want to support 4G devices face unpleasant choices: if all network equipment is migrated to 4G, then the legacy EIR database must also be migrated to a node in the packet-based network. If the network operator wants to continue supporting both 3G and 4G devices, the network operator must provide and maintain two different EIR functions—an SS7-based EIR and a Diameter-based EIR.
In addition, when a device having multiple radio interfaces is stolen, the rightful owner must notify not only the network operator that maintains the EIR for one of the radio interfaces, he or she must also notify the network operator(s) that maintain an EIR for each of the other radio interfaces—which may not be the same network operator. As a result, in conventional systems, there is a real possibility that a stolen device may be blacklisted on a GSM network but not blacklisted on an LTE network, for example.
Accordingly, in light of these disadvantages associated with these two options, there exists a need for a mechanism that allows network operators to leverage their existing 3G EIRs so that they may be used by nodes in a 4G network. More specifically, there exists a need for a multi-network equipment identity register.